Cunningham To Run Against Burr
By Reid Wilson
Two independent sources tell Hotline OnCall that ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D) is set to announce he will run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), reconsidering his earlier decision to drop out of the race.
Already, several big-name candidates have declined to challenge Burr, who is running for a second term. Cunningham, an atty and U.S. Army Reserve captain from Lexington, will give Burr a solid, if not top-tier, challenger in '10.
Cunningham will announce his decision in the coming weeks, according to one source.
The DSCC had been courting Cunningham all year, and the party stepped up its efforts to get him in the race once Rep. Bobby Etheridge (D) declined to run.
After initially declining to run, Cunningham will be portrayed as the next Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), who also started off her race against then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) by saying no to a bid. Hagan only jumped into the race late in Fall '07, a year before she defeated Dole.
Sec/State Elaine Marshall (D) is already in the race against Burr, though few see her as able to give the incumbent a serious challenge.
But strategists on both sides agree that Burr is no Dole, who was widely seen as unprepared for an unexpectedly difficult race. Burr has been stockpiling money -- he had almost $3.5M in the bank at the end of Sept. -- and has already assembled the beginnings of a campaign team.
Burr won his '04 election over ex-WH CoS Erskine Bowles (D) by a 52%-47% margin.
UPDATE: A Dem flack passes along a funny statement the NRSC put out 11/10, when Cunningham said he would not run: "Once again the DSCC and national Democrats have suffered a serious setback in their efforts to land a top-tier Senate candidate in North Carolina," NRSC spokesperson Colin Reed said at the time.
So how does the NRSC feel now that Dems have apparently scored their "top-tier" recruit? Comms director Brian Walsh responds: "At this late stage in the process, this has become a much greater problem for national Democrats than it is for us. After nearly a dozen recruiting failures the establishment might have finally found a candidate they like but they now face two big problems - 1) a three-way primary against two opponents who have already been working hard to shore up the support of key Democrat primary voting blocs; 2) a candidate who has no demonstrated record of raising the money needed for this race and even worse, is coming in against candidates who already have a head start."
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